So, here is the concept: My players must fly a ship through a maze to reach a building in the middle. I want to make the maze challenging, so I was thinking of having floating boulders that are constantly shifting and posing a threat. Sort of like an Asteroid Belt.
But I'm not sure how I should handle this. I already have the maze map made, so that part is done.
I imagine posting part members at different parts of the ship and yelling directions, but I really want to make it feel intense and dramatic as well. What can I do?
So if this is going to be a constant danger, I'd probably run it as a skill challenge. Set a relatively high DC for avoiding damage, and every 5 points below another damage threshold. Allow for players with appropriate skills to aid one another, allow for partial success. Perhaps I'd run this as a complex skill challenge, perhaps I'd run it more like a dungeon area hazard that recurred multiple times.
Alternatively, you could run it more like the rocks are random encounters within the maze. Here the piloting checks would function more like a classic stealth check to avoid the ogre, success would avoid the encounter altogether, failure would mean an encounter with the rocks which would have attack bonuses and do damage like a trap or complex trap.
As a skill challenge: one player is the main pilot, as many other players as you deem appropriate may assist by rolling their own piloting check from an appropriate post; successful assists may either give the main pilot advantage, or a static bonus, at your option; main pilot rolls a check, and if it's high enough the ship avoids damage from that part of the asteroid belt, for every 5 points below that threshold, the ship takes xdy damage (e.g. failing by 1-5 = 2d6 bludgeoning, failing by 6-10 = 4d6, etc.).
As a complex skill challenge: all characters roll whichever skill checks you deem appropriate against a DC you set, characters must accumulate a number of successes before a number of failures, or the ship takes damage and/or the damage is scaled based on the successes and failures (e.g. the character in the lookout post rolls perception checks, the character in the engine room/rigging the sails rolls knowledge checks, the character at the helm rolls pilot checks; getting five successes before five failures clears that section of the asteroid belt; getting all five successes with 0 failures = 0 ship damage, some ship damage for each failure, ship disabled/wrecked if five failures before five successes).
As a random or staged encounter: set a DC for an appropriate skill such as perception or piloting; if the PC(s) succeed, they navigate around that section of the asteroid field; if not, then give the asteroid field an attack bonus and damage that seems appropriate to you, and have it make one or more attack rolls as a simple or complex trap (DMG p. 120, more info in Xanathar's).
So, here is the concept: My players must fly a ship through a maze to reach a building in the middle. I want to make the maze challenging, so I was thinking of having floating boulders that are constantly shifting and posing a threat. Sort of like an Asteroid Belt.
But I'm not sure how I should handle this. I already have the maze map made, so that part is done.
I imagine posting part members at different parts of the ship and yelling directions, but I really want to make it feel intense and dramatic as well. What can I do?
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So if this is going to be a constant danger, I'd probably run it as a skill challenge. Set a relatively high DC for avoiding damage, and every 5 points below another damage threshold. Allow for players with appropriate skills to aid one another, allow for partial success. Perhaps I'd run this as a complex skill challenge, perhaps I'd run it more like a dungeon area hazard that recurred multiple times.
Alternatively, you could run it more like the rocks are random encounters within the maze. Here the piloting checks would function more like a classic stealth check to avoid the ogre, success would avoid the encounter altogether, failure would mean an encounter with the rocks which would have attack bonuses and do damage like a trap or complex trap.
As a skill challenge: one player is the main pilot, as many other players as you deem appropriate may assist by rolling their own piloting check from an appropriate post; successful assists may either give the main pilot advantage, or a static bonus, at your option; main pilot rolls a check, and if it's high enough the ship avoids damage from that part of the asteroid belt, for every 5 points below that threshold, the ship takes xdy damage (e.g. failing by 1-5 = 2d6 bludgeoning, failing by 6-10 = 4d6, etc.).
As a complex skill challenge: all characters roll whichever skill checks you deem appropriate against a DC you set, characters must accumulate a number of successes before a number of failures, or the ship takes damage and/or the damage is scaled based on the successes and failures (e.g. the character in the lookout post rolls perception checks, the character in the engine room/rigging the sails rolls knowledge checks, the character at the helm rolls pilot checks; getting five successes before five failures clears that section of the asteroid belt; getting all five successes with 0 failures = 0 ship damage, some ship damage for each failure, ship disabled/wrecked if five failures before five successes).
As a random or staged encounter: set a DC for an appropriate skill such as perception or piloting; if the PC(s) succeed, they navigate around that section of the asteroid field; if not, then give the asteroid field an attack bonus and damage that seems appropriate to you, and have it make one or more attack rolls as a simple or complex trap (DMG p. 120, more info in Xanathar's).